The rest of 2010

Hello there. Catch-up time. This blog starts and ends with parties at Martin & Lucy's. Important to note at this juncture that we do actually have other mates.

Just getting ready for Martin & Lucy's New Year party, which is a fancy dress affair. I don't own a fancy dress, or a dress of any kind, so I'm going in 80's pantaloons, a red flowery shirt, a mustard waistcoat, purple dickie-bow and grey suede winkle-pickers. Wifey's going in fur coat and no nickers. That should cause a stir.

I see from the previous blog that I've been sulking since just before Halloween. Here are some pics of that:










There, a fair representation of the proceedings. 'twas a good bash. I usually can't remember parties due to alcohol-induced amnesia, but this time I can't remember because it was months ago.

During the blog-free period I did eventually recover from the bad back, and start playing squash and doing other exercise. Now it all just seems like a bad dream, so much so that my good intentions of doing pilates went away after a few weeks. Having said that, the few sessions I did attend were very helpful to my recovery and I'd recommend it to anyone with concerns over the old spine. Just be prepared to have to make small talk with your exclusively female classmates.

Other high-points in the autumn/winter social calendar included the following:

Settling in at work

I noticed a building in the vicinity of my workplace which isn't as it seems. look twice at this:

..strange eh? Must have cost a fortune. I wonder if they are actually working on it inside, and one day it will shed this skin like a chrysalis, and dazzle us all like some gigantic concrete butterfly. The one next to it is identical in every respect, except that it's real. They must have photographed the real one and used it to make this cover. Must have a huge printer - paper size: A-minus-one-million.

Feeding Colin

Actually that happened loads of times, and presumably always will. He et this the other day, much to my amazement considering his recent reduction in bulk:Scary eh? Would take me a week to get through.

Opening the Art Lounge

This was a big one. Local choice of bars is very limited in New Mills so when our mate Dave (Seen earlier in this blog, dressed as dracula) decided to convert the top floor of the Beehive Pub into a contemporary art space-cum-wine bar, we were delighted. Wifey curated the 25 pieces on display, and since October five of them have actually sold. Here is what it looked like just before the grand opening:





The whole venture has been well-received on the whole and soon another set of paintings will replace the ones seen here. Many a happy evening has been spent there enjoying the non-intrusive atmosphere created by the lack of big tellies, dart-boards, pool-tables and rubbish music. In fact it was yours truly that provided the music, after the original plan to stream from the internet went awry. Support the facebook page - ArtLounge

Finding Gloves

Wifey hatched a hare-brained scheme to collect lost gloves and make some kind of art wrok from it. Friends and family went about their lives as normal, but upon spotting a discarded glove, would photograph it in-situ and collect the item for later use. Our good work was curtailed when the capricious artist changed it to children's gloves only. Who knows if anything will ever come of it, but here are my two offerings:


Visiting Grant & Sarah

Went for a few pints and a catch-up with Grant and Sarah. Had a great time and stayed over at Grant's place in Buxton. He introduced us to the delights of the Wii console - I had no idea. Here they are strutting their stuff to a dancing game:
I threw a few shapes myself, not to mention shearing a few sheep and bowling the odd strike. Lots of fun.

Bloody Awful Weather

Damn, I promised not to go on about it. Here's our car disappearing as I look on helplessly from the living room window:This picture will make me smile next summer, but now it just makes me want to get on the first plane to the equator.

Kings of Leon

Took wifey to see the boys in Sheffield. After 15 minutes she stopped fretting about the crowd and noticed there was a band on stage. After 30 minutes she started facebooking on her phone. Thereafter she occasionally looked up and asked how long till we could leave. A rock chick she isn't. On the other hand, I had a great time and thought they were a very good live band. Some mumblings about the light show were overheard, but this isn't really a showband, they just do their thing very well without the bangs and flashes. Here's a picture:
Not the greatest light show on earth. Overall wifey was underwhelmed with the whole evening. However, she did mention it might be good so see Elbow, so I got us tickets for their MEN Arena show in March. Here's hoping the phone stays in the bag on that night.

Impending GrandParenthood

Emma announced she's expecting in July, and sincere and heartfelt congratulations to her and Jody. I'm easily old enough to be a grandad, I just don't look it. Here is the little tyke:

Awwww.

Christmas

Well it comes but once a year. I have no photos of the detested event. Dinner at Suzy's house was excellent, we had nice visits from Alex and Peter/Merilyn/Family, then it was time for the aforementioned New Year celebration.

New Years Eve

It's now January 5th - yes it's taken me six days to write this.

The party at Martin & Lucy's went well. Lots of wine was drunk, lots of food was et. Here are pics:My outfit was pulled from several corners of my wardrobe.


There was dancing...
...and bare bums.
Rock-star looks. And Martin's nice too.


And that's about it for 2010. More blogging to come this year, especially if my proposed move to Kazakhstan comes off. Exciting things bound to happen over there. Currently I'm negotiating terms, more news soon.

As always, later taters.

Anyone still here?

Hellooooo.. *waits for echo* - I feel like Burt Lancaster in "The Swimmer" when he arrived home from an epic journey to find his home deserted, the garden choked with weeds and the front door locked. Bleakest end to a film ever - discuss. And yes, I know it was allegory.

Anyway, here's some drivel.

Frieze Art Fair and the Ambassador's Gaff

We got invited to the Swedish Ambassador's residence in London, la di da. There was an evening to showcase the work of Susanne Simonsson, a Swedish artist who works in a similar way to wifey. We recently bought one of her paintings and that was enough to secure an invite via the gallery ("Fred") where we bought it.

My main mistake on the evening was to blank the Ambassador on the way in, due to not realising she was the Ambassador. I later apologised to Nicole (the Ambassador), who turns out to be a very nice lady, if a little tall for my taste. Anyway, having got over my embarrassment I happily drank too much free wine and enjoyed the talk by Susanne, and another look at her paintings. Both Susanne and Fred (get me, on first name terms with the hoi polloi) recognised us and came over to talk, which was nice. Didn't buy any more pictures, which probably disappointed Fred somewhat.

The rest of our weekend in London was also quite arty. We did the Frieze Art Fair on the Saturday and the Tate Modern on Sunday. Frieze was in Regents Park, and consisted of one very large temporary enclosure containing thousands of interesting things. I got through the "I don't get it" barrier with contemporary art long ago, and now I can happily say I like or dislike things without feeling like I missed something. Some of the paintings were spectacular, some weren't. Here's Lyn writing home about it, in her patented posh-finger-typing style....and here she is hiding her embarrassment behind an enormous sycamore leaf...



The Tate have a large installation.. installed, by a Chinese artist with the wonderful name of Ai Wei Wei. I wonder if he sits in meetings and demands it's my way or the.. never mind. Anywei (SWIDT?) the installation consists of one hundred million (yes, that's a one with eight zero's) hand-painted porcelain sunflower seeds, on the floor of the turbine hall. Apparently on the morning of our visit the decision had been made to rope off the area, supposedly for health and safety reasons (the dust, you know. That got me moaning), but a more plausible explanation is that the good old British public were taking the damned things home at an alarming rate. Bear in mind, we'd only need to take one each and half of them would be gone. Here's what it looked like...
And here are some images from the Frieze Art Fair..




Phone Shenanigans

Shortly after getting back from Thailand (Did I mention Thailand?) I upgraded to a smartphone with O2. Of course I didn't go for an iPhone, because I believe in supporting the competition, even when the competition is rubbish. I got a Nokia 5800 and it was absolutely fine, if you ignored the fact that the screen was unresponsive and had to be operated by a daft little "Wand" that clipped on the back. Otherwise it compared well with wifey's iPhone, in fact I scored major points when wandering round London using the GPS route-finding widget, and my phone actually gave verbal instructions at junctions where the iPhone just dumbly flashed a little blue ball.

Overall it was a viable alternative .... until I sat on it. The screen (always the weak point) developed a crack, which grew over a period of a week until the screen was virtually unreadable. I began to look around for repair options. Lo and behold, during our stay in London I got a call from Northern Telecom telling me that they are now managing my O2 business account, and would I like to upgrade? (I think that's what he said, he was very scouse) Well of course I immediately said there was some mistake and I'd already had my free phone, but no, the scouser assured me I was due another. I was delighted, if skeptical. Anyway, to cut a long story short (oh, shut up) I settled for a free upgrade to an HTC Desire, which is, as of course you know, voted "Best Smartphone" in a lot of tech publications. I'm reliably informed that my new phone has arrived today and is waiting for me at home. I'm stupidly excited.

In other news

Feverish Halloween preparations are underway, basically consisting of a trip to Matalan to buy a costume. Mine's the Devil. The Hooded cloak and facepaint I can deal with, but the plastic trident, at most a foot long, is not good enough. I can feel some DIY coming on. I've also been tasked with finding some halloween music for Saturday's party, and Lucy you can rest assured I've been diligent.

A full report, with photo's taken on my new HTC phone (Did I mention that?) will apear here soon.

Laters.

Late posting

Last weekend: oy.

Inlaws' birthdays, lodgers' disasters, lost children, meals, wine, pilates, bike maintenance, broken scooters, all human life was here. Oh, and a lantern procession was in there somewhere.

Photos of the lantern procession will follow as soon as I have access to the camera we used on the night. Isn't it a shame digital cameras are so useless at night outdoors? You take what looks to the eye like a fantastic panorama, and what do you get? A few nearby faces bleached out, and utter darkness beyond. Camera never lies? Bollocks.

It was a very successful night it has to be said - mind you, I'm not party to the financial results. However, the buckets were certainly noisier this year so hopefully people were generous. Many hundreds of lanterns and much shuffling along the Torrs walkway, then a nice firework display. I got so hungry I gobbed two ostrich burgers in as many bites when we finally reached the field.

Father in law Tony, not great on his feet, opted for the electric scooter, and it was a partial success. He got round, but at the expense of one tyre. He endured with some dignity the awful sound of the tyre flapping around for three quarters of the journey.

Many thanks to Lucy for snagging the missing offspring, and keeping him safe till we passed by her position. Lucy, you looked very cold I have to say.

Quite proud, as already mentioned, of our lanterns. Many compliments as we went round, also a staged pic for the Peak Times (I think) newspaper. Mind you, they asked everybody. Our coloured LED idea worked well, and with real actual candles in the main section of the lantern, we had the perfect mix of tradition and technology.

In other news, I attended Pilates for the first time. It's for my back. Lots of wobbling and straining, and now I have pleasantly sore stomach muscles. Unfortunately I've always hated sit-ups and all other core-strength exercises, and I believe this has contributed to my weak back. Great arms and legs, great lungs, but my middle is like when you twist a balloon into two halves. A bit. Anyway hopefully pilates will help, and my plan to play squash again will be back on track by 2011 *sob*.

Wifey took her Mum to a Spa treatment day in Buxton and a wonderful time was had by all. Met up with them afterwards, whereupon they proceeded to drink far too much wine and wax lyrical about their newly smooth complexions. I must give it a try some day.

More soon, or late.

Q-Bikes

I rode to work this morning - this time by pedal power. Quite pleased with myself. My time was 57:55 which is my first time under the hour for the trip. Must have been wind-assisted I reckon. Looking forward to the trip home, which is of course uphill. If I beat the hour for that journey I'll be well ready for a re-match with the loobster. Lucy, be afraid.

Only problem with riding to work is, I get extremely hungry. Just had the most enormous lunch (healthy one of course) and I'll be ravenous again when I get home. Ah well.

Later, q-bikes.

Silent Disco

Lantern Workshops - loads of fun.

This is the fourth lantern parade since we moved to New Mills, but it's the first time we've actually made lanterns for it. I really enjoyed it and the result is very rewarding. It's amazing what you can do with some willow, masking tape and tissue paper, and a bit of ceative input. Meet Harry and Sally....

These two are going to look SO cool lit up.

The workshop sessions run for two two hours twice a day at weekends, and this year they were very busy, with the volunteers (including Martin and Lucy) run off their feet, sharing their expertise with various people from 7 to 70. Speaking of Martin, he fits into a very small space...

He also seems to appear on photos that aren't about him...


The parade is on Sturday 25th, and it's a great spectacle - hundreds of people walking through the Torrs with lantens of all shapes and sizes. This year's theme is music. You can see photos of the last ten years' processions at www.newmillsfestival.com.

In other news, we had young Jack over for the weekend, but about his exploits in Lantern making, he's saying nothing..

More soon. later taters.

A dream come true

Played music with some musicians - a working class boy's dream. I can't explain how that makes me feel. We had an Irish fiddle player, an Italian guitarist, an English ukulele and harmonica player, and me and wifey (no nationality) on Bodhran. What a lovely evening. No photos though, I was too busy banging the drum. Thanks Ursula, Marco, Roger, wifey, the audience of spouses and of course hostess and prime mover, Maureen.

Next one is in three weeks, and I hope it will be even better.

In other news, what a weekend we've had. London on Thursday evening, saw an opening night of art by Susanne Simonson. We were so blown away, we spent our kitchen on a painting.....
Not a cheap kitchen either. We also managed to quaff far too much crisp white, and both had Brazilians. Meals that is. Friday was the above-mentioned music soiree, then Sunday I was outclassed up hill and down dale by Lucy on the mountain bike. Never mind, it's all good, and I'll be fitter next time.

Lucy, don't get comfy at the front, my fitness will return...

I'm alive

Well, this potato has officially vacated the couch.

I had my first serious game of squash last night, with no painkillers, no anti-inflammatories and no after effects. Nuther game today lunchtime, again on Thursday. Season approaches and my goal is to be proper fit for it. Now I just need to get cycling to work... ah, it's pissing down.

Got a recording of Lyn and the others' drunken singing at the bitter end of Friday night, before Lyn's 36 hour hangover. It's a poor (not to say tone-deaf) rendition of Knocking on Heaven's Door, with a fair amount of loony laughter from the wifester. I think it's hilarious, but have been persuaded not to post it.

More soon.

Camping

Went to the Bull i'th Thorn campsite near Buxton, for a weekend of camping, eating and drinking with Grant and all his gang, for his 40th. Friday night was great, lots of boozy fun, and a sing-song, of all things.
Unfortunately the overindulgence didn't sit well with Wifey's liver and she disappeared under a duvet until late on Saturday, whereupon we went home. Further recovery was then necessary and we went back to the campsite Sunday morning for the tent and motorbike. Never mind, Lynny, next time we'll make it to both evenings.

Built this on saturday morning, expecting wifey to appear from the tent at any moment.

Car - check. Bike - check. Tent - check... hang on, where's the missus? zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Fun with tents on sunday. Lyn flies a real one, Grant still delusional.

September already

Well, here we are at the scrag-end of August, in fact my anniversary, and I made exactly 5 posts in that benighted month. I could use the excuse that not much happened, but for one, that isn't true, and for two you'll be quick to point out that it never stopped me before.

No, the main reason for not posting is a case of apathy. My back's been bad, work was slow etc etc. But now those things have gone away. My back survived a ten-mile walk with ease yesterday - I even carried the rucksack. Then I went swimming today and still no ill effects. I do believe I'm cured. Just in time too - the squash season is rushing up on us fast.

While we're on walking, I posted the photos on Facebook - yes I got lazy - so I'm not about to repeat them all here. I will shove a selection here because of course, this blog will be here long after FB has become no more than a mundane memory. ..

It's a lot further than it looks to the bottom of Kinder Low End. Steep too.

This one looks like we've been put in charge of finding the murder weapon. "Spread out and keep your eyes down".

Happy before the descent. Ooh, my black toes.

The star of the show - Derbyshire

If this wasn't so damned funny it would be annoying.

In other news, Emma has turned 30, so we stuffed some manky old candles in a stale muffin for her. She seemed pleased..



I aslo witnessed the bizarre spectacle of Sharon (of the extremely red hair) attempting to make a napkin levitate off her plate by waving at it and muttering spells..


But enough frivolity. The real news is as follows:

• After much wailing and gnashing of teeth I decided the job in Korea was not for me. This decision was made slightly easier for me by my potential employer, who kindly told me that I couldn't have the job.
• My first and only foray into back pain seems to be over. As previously stated, it will not happen again. I intend to take up yoga, pilates or any other activity which has been proven to prevent it. I now feel like a normal human being again, and I'm ready to start doing some decent exercise. Fitness has been such a huge part of my life for so long, that to have a month off was very very depressing. Now I'm happy again, so much so that I think I'm beginning to irritate the missus. I'll be back on the bike very soon (get ready Lucy) and "Ramping up" to the journey to work. Also doing some squash training, assuming the initial low-impact stuff doesn't cause a reaction. *shudders*
• Me and Lynny have got ourselves involved with some other amateur musicians and an evening of accoustic mucking about has been planned for September 10th at Maureen's house. I'm very excited, Lyn is very scared. Potential embarrassment - what if the others are a lot less amateur than we are? I need practice on the bodhran that's for sure. I will blog about the evening and post any pictures, even some sound recordings.

That's it for now - I'm sure there are lots of other snippets I could put on here, but they will follow, rest assured.

Later, taters

They're here

All set up in my library, records to hand, laptop connected, headphones ready. What's missing? Ah yes, talent. Must arrange some lessons. In case you're wondering the album is Wonderful Life by Black. Proper 80's classic.

I'd been blowing the dust off the drums for five minutes before I was told "this won't work". Apparently my tapping was disturbing her thoughts even though she was three floors away and I had my headphones on. Soundproofing, that's the thing.

and another thing - what is it with me and road debris? Yet another back tyre was (nearly) binned the other day by a 40mm screw. I wondered what the rhythmic "doink" noise was every time the wheel went round. Pulled over to find this...
Scary init? Bike is running well btw, thanks for asking. Finally got it run in. I was coming through Whaley Bridge on 599 miles, approachng the A6 roundabout, and it clicked over to 600 miles. It's left for home through Furnace Vale at 30 mph, or right for the bypass which has no side-roads and rarely any policemen. Guess which way I went?

Later taters.